Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan

by William Dalrymple

the Afghans were perceived as mere pawns on the chessboard of western diplomacy, to be engaged or sacrificed at will. It was a precedent that was to be followed many other times, by several different powers, over the years and decades to come; and each time the Afghans would show themselves capable of defending their inhospitable terrain far more effectively than any of their would-be manipulators could possibly have suspected.

‘The Afghans of Khurasan have an age-old reputation,’ wrote Mirza ‘Ata Mohammad, one of the most perceptive writers of Shah Shuja’s age, ‘that wherever the lamp of power burns brightly, there like moths they swarm; and wherever the tablecloth of plenty is spread, there like flies they gather.’

‘At this time,’ he wrote, ‘fate afflicted us with much suffering. But we prayed for strength, as the gift of victory and of kingship lies only with God. By His grace, our intention was that from the moment of mounting the throne, we would so rule our subjects with justice and mercy, that they should live in happiness within the shade of our protecting wings. For the purpose of kingship is to watch over the people, and to free the weak from oppression.’

Mirza ‘Ata, the most articulate Afghan writer of the period, sounds like Babur when he talks proudly of Afghanistan as ‘so much more refined than wretched Sindh where white bread and educated talk are unknown’. Elsewhere he talks of his country as ‘a land where forty-four different types of grapes grow, and other fruits as well – apples, pomegranates, pears, rhubarb, mulberries, sweet watermelon and musk-melon, apricots, peaches, etc – and ice-water, that cannot be found in all the plains of India. The Indians know neither how to dress nor how to eat – God save me from the fire of their dal and their miserable chapattis!’

in Jerusalem, the British Consul was reporting a build-up of ‘Russian agents’ preparing for a ‘Russian conquest of the Holy Lands’.

Auckland also sent several camel loads of alcohol for the bibulous Maharajah, who according to Emily ‘had requested George to send him samples of all the wines he had, which he did, but took the precaution of adding some whisky and cherry brandy, knowing what Ranjit Singh’s drinking habits are. The whisky he highly approved of, and he told Macnaghten that he could not understand why the Governor General gives himself the trouble of drinking seven or eight glasses of wine when one glass of whisky would do the same work.’

‘Is Lord Auckland married?’ ‘No.’ ‘What! Has he no wives at all?’ ‘None.’ ‘Why doesn’t he marry?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Why don’t you marry?’ ‘I can’t afford it.’ ‘Why not? Are English wives very expensive?’ ‘Yes; very.’ ‘I wanted one myself some time ago and wrote to the government about it, but they did not send me one.’

‘Poor, dear peaceful George has gone to war,’ wrote Emily to her uncle, the former Governor General Lord Minto, who had first despatched Elphinstone to Afghanistan. ‘Rather an inconsistency in his character.’

One Indian civil servant pointed out that the manifesto used ‘the words “justice” and “necessity”, and the terms “frontier”, “security of the possessions of the British Crown” and “national defence” in a manner for which fortunately no precedent existed in the English language’.

Lord Auckland, excited by the hubbub, then ‘made a most splashy answer’ to Ranjit’s speech of welcome ‘about their united armies conquering the world. You will be much taken aback, I guess,’ wrote Fanny to her sister in England, ‘when they march hand in hand and take Motcombe.’

Then it was the turn of the British. ‘The consummate skill with which the British chief attacked an imaginary enemy’, wrote Kaye, ‘was equalled by the gallantry with which he defeated it. He fought indeed a great battle on the plain, and only wanted another army in his front to render his victory a complete one.’

All that was now needed was a bridge. The river was more than a thousand yards wide ‘with a torrent like a mill stream’, and initially the engineers had only eight boats ‘and nothing near us but a small village . . . First we seized, by great exertion, about 120 boats,’ reported the Orcadian James Broadfoot, who was put in charge of the operation, then cut down lots of trees; these we made into strong beams. There was no rope, but we made 500 cables out of a peculiar kind of grass which grows 100 miles from here; the anchors were made of small trees joined and loaded with half a ton of stone. Our nails were all made on the spot. We then anchored the boats in the middle of the stream in a line across leaving twelve feet between each; strong beams were laid across the boats; and planks nailed on these for a roadway. This is the largest military bridge which has ever been made, and you may conceive what labour we had in finishing it in eleven days.

As one observer put it, ‘it must always remain a wonder that any government, any officer, or set of officers, who had either science or experience in the field, should in a half-conquered country fix their forces in so extraordinary and injudicious a position.’

Broadfoot was also horrified by the sheer lack of knowledge displayed by the British about the Afghanistan they were trying to rule. ‘Our apathy in this respect is disgraceful,’ he exclaimed, and so is our ignorance of the institutions and manners of the country. When a country is invaded, its resources are always used by the conquering army, the leader of which assumes the government.

Samad Khan, the grandson of Zal Beg Khan Durrani Baduzai, petitioned that ‘My pension is not being paid.’ His Majesty signalled to the Nizam al-Daula to make an answer, but he merely replied: ‘You lie!’ Samad Khan answered back: ‘It is you who lie! You have humiliated all those who love and are loyal to the royal family.’ Nizam al-Daula, hearing these truthful words, lost his temper and shouted: ‘I’ll have your eyes put out!’ Hearing this boorishness in the royal presence, Samad Khan replied: ‘Were it not that we are in the presence of His Majesty, I would slit your tongue out of your mouth with my sword! We have both lived in this country long enough before the return of His Majesty, and all well know that, while my family have enjoyed high and honourable positions in the state without interruption, you were merely fetching and carrying Mohammad Zaman Khan Barakzai’s pisspot!’

‘Now we are justified in throwing off this English yoke: they stretch the hand of tyranny to dishonour private citizens great and small: fucking a slave girl isn’t worth the ritual bath that follows it: but we have to put a stop right here and now, otherwise these English will ride the donkey of their desires into the field of stupidity, to the point of having all of us arrested shortly and deported into foreign imprisonment.

Suddenly, a naked man stood before me, covered with blood, from two deep sabre cuts in the head and five musket shots in the arm and body. He proved to be a sawar [cavalryman] of Sir W Macnaghten sent with a message to us, but intercepted by the insurgents. This being a rather strong hint of how matters were going, I immediately ordered all the gates to be secured.

‘If you are faithful and true, people will love you; deceit will only make people shun and loathe you!’ As it was, Sardar Muhammad Akbar Khan’s fame spread, and everyone repeated how all the English achieved was to drive the famished donkeys of their failed ambition back into India and to force the women of India to wear the weeds of widowhood in mourning for their husbands! It was clear to all that those Englishmen who had boasted of their shrewdness in policy and bravery in battle, were worth nothing compared to the Sardars of Khurasan. They were in fact mere mules stuck in the mud!129

That night, lamps were raised on the gates of Jalalabad and bugles blown to guide in any last stragglers, but none limped in. ‘A strong wind was blowing from the south, which sent the sound of the bugles all over the town,’ remembered Captain Thomas Seaton. ‘The terrible wailing sound of those bugles I will never forget. It was a dirge for our slaughtered soldiers and, heard all through the night, it had an inexpressibly mournful and depressing effect. Dr Brydon’s tale struck horror into the hearts of all who heard it . . . The whole army had been destroyed, one man alone escaping to tell the fearful tale.’65

In Delhi, the bankers of the Chandni Chowk bazaars heard the news a full two days before the colonial authorities: the letter-writing systems of traditional trade working far faster and more efficiently than the creaking colonial system of harkara runners.

‘When the enemy danced with rage, they were saluted with shouts of laughter and “Baa-Baa!” from along the walls. We took four hundred and eighty one sheep and a few goats, which gave sixteen days’ meat for the garrison, at three-quarters ration . . . On the 3rd a spy came in and told us that when Akbar learned that we had captured his sheep, he burst into such a transport of fury, that his people were afraid to go near him.’

Shuja was always unusual for his honourable loyalty to his allies and his faithfulness to his agreements, in a region not known for either.

‘I felt throughout that Lord Jesus was at my side,’ wrote Havelock later. Havelock’s men had become rather bored of his sermons during the siege; they were, however, deeply impressed by their commander’s almost mystical sangfroid in battle. ‘He was as calm under fire as if he stood in a drawing room full of ladies,’ one wrote afterwards.

The gates were duly paraded around India, accompanied by an imposing escort, where they were ceremoniously displayed to bewildered bystanders in an attempt to impress upon the people of India the undiminished power and benevolence of British rule. There was, however, no reaction from the Indian princes, and still less from the Hindus, neither of whom had been aware that they were missing any gates.

Comparatively speaking I was one of the lucky ones. But I hope I shall never again go through what I then suffered.’

Seeing that jackasses have been for a long time employed in the Political Department, is it the commencement of a system to introduce them to the military one, with a view to establishing uniformity in the services?’